Posted by Jed Lewison on Sun Jul 6, 2008 at 2:29 PM Pacific

Both campaigns return focus to domestic issues

Today, the Obama campaign previewed a week of contrasts on the Bush-McCain economic record and agenda. They released a detailed overview of the policy issues they will focus on in a ten-page memo on the McCain economic plan (link, .pdf).

The central message: McCain's economic policies are the same disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration. His recipe for how to get ourselves out of the hole we are in is "more of the same."

There's a lot of good nuggets in that document, but here's what caught my eye:

  1. Obama is offering middle-class families much larger tax cuts than McCain, who targets almost all of his middle-class tax cuts to families with children. (Under McCain, no children, no tax cut.)
  2. On the whole, McCain's plan would actually raise taxes on middle-class families due to a new health care premium tax (I'm going to write more about that in a separate post)
  3. McCain's tax plan calls for a $1.2 billion tax cut for Exxon-Mobil
  4. McCain doesn't pay for his tax plan -- it will increase the deficit by $200-$300 billion per year
  5. On the economy, McCain does not have a short-term stimulus plan -- Obama does.

While it's no surprise that the Obama campaign is returning its focus to the domestic front, I'm a bit surprised that the McCain campaign seems to be coming back home as well. (Maybe he got homesick while he was in Colombia and Mexico?)

McCain's domestic focus is on energy issues, which he's highlighting in the first negative TV ad of the campaign, a $3 million ad buy placed by his independent expenditure committee at the RNC.

(By the way, ignore anybody who tells you there is a fundamental difference between the RNC, the McCain campaign, and its independent expenditure committee. Legally, they are all distinct organizations, but that is just a technical classification designed for compliance with the campaign finance law that John McCain himself wrote. The bottom-line is that he's raising the money for all these groups, and the donors are contributing to them to support his campaign. He must accept responsibility for their advertisements.)

Both campaigns return focus to domestic issues

Today, the Obama campaign previewed a week of contrasts on the Bush-McCain economic record and agenda. They released a detailed overview of the policy issues they will focus on in a ten-page memo on the McCain economic plan (link, .pdf).

The central message: McCain's economic policies are the same disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration. His recipe for how to get ourselves out of the hole we are in is "more of the same."

There's a lot of good nuggets in that document, but here's what caught my eye:

  1. Obama is offering middle-class families much larger tax cuts than McCain, who targets almost all of his middle-class tax cuts to families with children. (Under McCain, no children, no tax cut.)
  2. On the whole, McCain's plan would actually raise taxes on middle-class families due to a new health care premium tax (I'm going to write more about that in a separate post)
  3. McCain's tax plan calls for a $1.2 billion tax cut for Exxon-Mobil
  4. McCain doesn't pay for his tax plan -- it will increase the deficit by $200-$300 billion per year
  5. On the economy, McCain does not have a short-term stimulus plan -- Obama does.

While it's no surprise that the Obama campaign is returning its focus to the domestic front, I'm a bit surprised that the McCain campaign seems to be coming back home as well. (Maybe he got homesick while he was in Colombia and Mexico?)

McCain's domestic focus is on energy issues, which he's highlighting in the first negative TV ad of the campaign, a $3 million ad buy placed by his independent expenditure committee at the RNC.

(By the way, ignore anybody who tells you there is a fundamental difference between the RNC, the McCain campaign, and its independent expenditure committee. Legally, they are all distinct organizations, but that is just a technical classification designed for compliance with the campaign finance law that John McCain himself wrote. The bottom-line is that he's raising the money for all these groups, and the donors are contributing to them to support his campaign. He must accept responsibility for their advertisements.)

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